The story goes that Sir Oliver Cromwell sent for his nephew, whose name was Oliver Cromwell also, to play with the prince. When little Noll, as they nicknamed Oliver, came in, his uncle presented him to the boy prince. Young Oliver tried to shake hands with Charles. Old Oliver, who wanted the boy to bow and kiss the prince’s hand, said, “Pay your duty to Prince Charles.” “I owe him no duty,” said Noll Cromwell. “Why should I kiss that boy’s hand?” King James only laughed at the Cromwell lad’s spirit, and Charles and Noll were left to play together. The prince soon struck the other boy, as he was in the habit of doing, but naughty Noll struck back and sent “the bonnie prince” howling to the king with royal blood streaming from his little freckled nose. Sir Oliver and the members of the royal party looked with holy horror at the boy who had laid his hands on the Lord’s anointed. Some of them thought young Oliver ought to be imprisoned in the Tower of London or even beheaded for his wickedness. But King James had sense enough to see that it was well for the prince to get “tit for tat” once in a while; so he only looked hard at little Oliver and said: [Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL VISITING THE POET MILTON. CROMWELL IS CARRYING THE LARGE HAT AFFECTED BY THE ROUNDHEADS. _From the painting by David Neal_] “Thou art a bold lad; and if thou live to be a man, my son Charlie would do wisely to be friends with thee.” Then he turned to Sir Oliver and the frightened friends standing there, saying, “Harm not the lad. He has taught my son a good lesson, if heaven do but give him grace to profit by it. If he be tempted to play the tyrant over the stubborn English, let him remember little Oliver Cromwell.” Young Oliver went to Free School and then to a Puritan college in Cambridge University; but he had to leave school on account of the death of his father. Before he was thirty Cromwell was elected to Parliament, of which his cousin, John Hampden, was also a member. Meanwhile King James died and his son, the prince with whom Oliver had quarreled when a boy, became King Charles the First. King James had been so sensible at times and so foolish at others that he has been called “the wisest fool in Europe.” But Charles had even less sense than his royal father. He tried to abolish Parliament, thus setting up his own will against the will of the people of all England and Scotland.